I thought about starting my own blog too but I’m just too lazy so, I guess I‘ll just have to keep checking yours out.
LOL,

- Marc Shaw

The Christian does need to hold the Bible as authoritative for their orthodoxy and orthopraxy. For these it is sufficient.

‘Inspired’ is really the claim the Bible makes about itself, which means G-d’s Spirit breathed G-d’s purpose and sufficiency into it.

The fundamental precept being Who is Jesus Christ? Walking through John 9; Jesus starts as a man, Then becomes a prophet, and finally, my Messiah;

This is my definition of liberal theology as it relates to Christianity. The bible is not a sufficient source of authority, and the liberal Christian desires more: more experience, more knowledge, more…The current Redemptive Revelation of God does not satisfy.

Though I put the absolutes in the realm of faith and not in the realm of certain knowledge. It is by faith that I can KNOW Jesus and be in the light. This is a faith experience. My reasoning experience is necessary training (Bible) to help me ’see’ the path, but I still must apply the Bible with a great deal of humility in my heart. I experience a great deal of gray and darkness that my flesh, the world, or satan brings into life to make me weak-kneed in my faith from time to time. That is why faith is faith, our walk is faith, our knowing is faith. It is knowing with humble trust.

I don’t see fully the brilliant light of G-d yet. I must always have humility in what my ears and eyes of faith see. The gray is not in heaven or in the future new earth, but it is here on this old earth. Thus, humble faith shines the brightest light. The current darkness has a grey uncertainty that is used by G-d because the kind action of humble faith made in this world is a brilliant light that lasts into eternity. The humble faith-filled fool dwarfs the proud knower. G-d is creating a purer higher lovingkindness born of the faithful fool, because it bursts out of the grayness of this world. Kind actions in a kind world would not be nearly so pure.

To the one who is certain in his ’seeing’ and ‘knowing’ I would say, uncertainty is a blessing to us in a dark disguise. With G-d’s help only faith can steady us on the Rock of His Salvation.

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There is a story written by Martin Buber of a proud young athiest arguing with a whole school of brilliant rabbis. He continually thwarts every argument for belief. Finally, he approaches an old rabbi who is not presenting any arguments. “What do you say? How come you can believe in G-d?”

The old rabbi merely said, “You are too smart for me, young man. I cannot give you any reasoning that will prove to you that G-d exists and that G-d is good.”

The young man triumphantly boasted loudly enough for all to hear, “And what if G-d doesn’t exist, old man?”

The old rabbi quietly responded, “But what if G-d does?”

The young man had no reply. He left to ponder anew his place in the world-to-come.

I mostly have a question about your statement, “It is either inerrant and infallible…or it is not”. It is helpful to have you clarify what things you accept as inerrant and infallible and what those terms mean. I’m confident we disagree, but it is best if I disagree with what you actually mean, versus me guessing what you mean.

How is it you came to be so clear in your statement? For me, something is inerrant and infallible if it is *found* to be inerrant and infallible, not because it is *necessary* for it to be inerrant and infallible (given whatever is meant by those).

For example, I can propose, “The Bible is inerrant with respect to its description of history in every detail; names, dates, numbers, etc.” A few things must take place: First, we have to determine when the Biblical authors are actually describing history versus writing a story to convey meaning, not such an easy task itself. Then we have to use various techniques to evaluate the historical description and consider its accuracy, another difficult task. Some descriptions are more difficult than others to evaluate, but there are enough easy ones to actually do this. If a fault is found in the Biblical description, my proposal is invalidated. As an aside: I don’t intend to work through one of these, I know that we’ll disagree; you’ll say there is no fault and I’ll say there is, in the end, we’ll only agree to disagree

What does it mean if the proposal is invalidated? It depends upon why or why not historical infallibility is necessary from one’s perspective. To me, this is a question of philosophy, not theology. My personal view is that one must proceed from Philosophy -> History -> Theology. In other words, one’s Philosophical understanding informs their view of History and their view of History combined with Philosophy informs their view of Theology. Now, I realize that for a great many people it works in exactly the opposite direction, Theology informs History and those combined inform Philosophy.

Here is a suggestion with which you might have a difficult time: Using Vince’s description of the Liberal vs. Conservative Divide, I propose it is possible to both be Conservative and accept the Bible as not inerrant and infallible…according to what I suspect you mean by those terms.

jdm

“Theology” is the study of God. However, we can say very little factually about God in actuality. If we think we know Him in our statement of beliefs then we will most certainly not KNOW Him, but will have instead replaced Him with an idol of reason. The Jewish ‘Know’ is more important that the Greek ‘Know’.

To the Jew, God comes into the real world to be our provider and our shepherd. It is through these relationships of His involvement in history that we KNOW Him. And our knowing relationship is based on our agreement to obey His call, to Hear His voice. The words “I hear” are very indicative of the Jewish perspective of Knowing. We agreement to hear God, that is, to obey God and His call upon our lives at Creator. If we have heard God, then we have also obeyed God. If we did not obey, then we didn’t hear. Those who do not act upon Jesus words are told ‘away from me you lawless ones, I never KNEW you.’

To the Greek, we see with our mind’s eye (reason) what the true concepts are about God (theology). The words “I see” are very indicative of the Greek perspective of seeing with our brain. Our statement of beliefs (what we ’see’ to be true) becomes our bases of faith. I think this really falls short of faith, just as James says.

Jewish ‘knowing’ can sometimes become works without faith. Greek ‘knowing’ can sometimes become faith without works.

Theology should not just be the study of God. It should really be the study of the relationship between God and humanity (or the study of the broken relationship).

This is not the Me-Centered vs God-Centered views. The Me-Centered Column was simply a fuzzy version of Liberal Theology. It was mostly a straw man build to make the God-Centered (Calvinism) Column sound truer. The truer dichotomy would be Calvinism and Arminism columns. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Calvinist-Arminian_debate

This tries to make a comparison of this theological dichotomy. This dichotomy of “human depravity” and “human responsiveness” toward God’s call is an interesting theological dichotomy well worth pondering. However, understanding these theological poles may be less important than simply obeying God’s call.